The Importance of Film in Creating Shared Experiences

With the 87th Academy Awards (better known as The Oscars to most folks) having just happened, it seems fitting that the chosen topic for any blog right now would be Film. Whilst The Oscars is so huge that we kinda don’t need a better reason than this to choose film as our topic this month, the motivation behind this choice goes a little deeper than “Oh hey The Oscars are happening, we should probably write about that” for the Elevenses family and warrants a little exploration. This is why I’ll be looking at film and its importance in creating valuable shared experiences as part of my Food for Thought column.

Now, my Elevenses post wouldn’t be complete without some nod to Tolkien would it? (we do call ourselves Elevenses after all). It is with this understanding that I bring you this fun fact, relevant to both The Lord of the Rings and The Oscars:

“The most successful films in Oscar history are Ben-Hur, Titanic and Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King. Each took home 11 gongs – although Return Of The King was the only one of those to take home every award for which it was nominated.” ~ Empire Magazine

Moving on!

If you’re anything like me then the role film has played in your life thus far is indeed an important one. You might remember the first film you ever watched with your family or that fateful day at your grandparents house with your 3 cousins who gave you a crash course in horror films at the age of 12 (I haven’t watched Stephen King’s IT since and, to be frank, never intend on watching that mess again). Even if neither of these examples ring true for you, I can bet my bottom dollar (I wish we had an English equivalent of this but “bet my bottom pound coin” doesn’t sound quite right) that you have a goto film when you’re sick, or that you have a film that you can’t live without watching every 3 months, or there’s that one film that made you cry 5 separate times when you first watched it in theatres (it also may be true that there’s only a handful of people that know the name of said film, and you’ve been careful to distribute the information regarding this emotional trauma between this handful of people in a fashion very similar to how the Coca Cola recipe is handled). What I’m trying to say is: each of us have more than one story to tell about more than one film and may even be able to use films, and the surrounding experience, to recall important events in our own life story. In even shorter terms: films create memories.

That’s pretty damn rad isn’t it?

Now for Patricia (Mom #2), Hunter and Jacqui it seems to me, as the latest addition to their family, that film holds an interesting significance to them as a family unit. It is still true that there are fond memories of shared experiences ignited by film for them. Here’s where I have to indulge a personal favourite of mine: when Jacqui and Hunter’s Dad brought home Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke thinking it was just another Totoro.

Note: no, that is not ketchup.

I can only imagine the look on their tiny faces as Ashitaka fought that creepy spider-esque boar demon thingy, or when the camera panned across bodies of innocent villagers and they realised their heads were missing. The only thing that even comes close to my mental image is:

But what’s more is there’s this added layer to their individual experiences where film impacted them in a much more physical and central sense than just having a regular family film night each week. What I mean by this is that each of them have been on a set and each of them have had a deeper interest in the mechanics of film and filmmaking that is individual to them in this family unit. Let me make it a little clearer:

Patricia delved into a makeup diploma course in her early 20s (the diploma was the brainchild of non other than the Westmore family – if you’re a fan of Star Trek these guys might just ring one or two bells) and went from photography gigs to modelling gigs to TV gigs to video gigs.

Jacqui purchased her first camera in 7th grade (using her own $300, she’s still proud of doing so to this day), worked as a producer for an indigenous film project and ended up going to film school in Colorado for a spell. More recently, she’s been a runner and video editor for a local video production company here in Brighton.

Hunter, well his involvement with sets and film is pretty bloody obvious isn’t it? He’s an actor in his final year of his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Alberta and will (I have no doubt about it) be receiving an Oscar at some point in his life. Fact: Hunter’s first acting role was in one of Jacqui’s first videos.

What all of this adds up to is a deeper “behind the scenes” shared experience of not only film, but of life through film. It’s great when you and your parents, or your sister or brother, play the same sport right? You can bond over it and your relationship strengthens through this shared experience. This intrinsic relationship between these three wonderful people and film is much the same in that they have a shared interest that strengthens their relationship with each other.

Plus I get to watch a film with these guys and ask dumb questions like “is that guy acting well?” or “that’s too much blusher right, surely?!” or “what’s so great about this shot?” and get passion fuelled answers that I, being a hoarder of knowledge and lover of a good flick, thoroughly enjoy. Selfish I know, but I’m spoiled by just being around these people.

Shared experiences are of course just one facet of why film is important to people and families. For me and this Elevenses family it’s a pretty damn big one and I’d like to close this off by thanking all involved in every film I’ve ever watched, and every film I will watch, for contributing to my life experience in such a profound way.

With the 87th Academy Awards (better known as The Oscars to most folks) having just happened, it seems fitting that the chosen topic for any blog right now would be Film. Whilst The Oscars is so huge that we kinda don’t need a better reason than this to choose film as our topic this month, the motivation behind this choice goes a little deeper than “Oh hey The Oscars are happening, we should probably write about that” for the Elevenses family and warrants a little exploration. This is why I’ll be looking at film and its importance in creating valuable shared experiences as part of my Food for Thought column.

Now, my Elevenses post wouldn’t be complete without some nod to Tolkien would it? (we do call ourselves Elevenses after all). It is with this understanding that I bring you this fun fact, relevant to both The Lord of the Rings and The Oscars:

“The most successful films in Oscar history are Ben-Hur, Titanic and Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King. Each took home 11 gongs – although Return Of The King was the only one of those to take home every award for which it was nominated.” ~ Empire Magazine

Moving on!

If you’re anything like me then the role film has played in your life thus far is indeed an important one. You might remember the first film you ever watched with your family or that fateful day at your grandparents house with your 3 cousins who gave you a crash course in horror films at the age of 12 (I haven’t watched Stephen King’s IT since and, to be frank, never intend on watching that mess again). Even if neither of these examples ring true for you, I can bet my bottom dollar (I wish we had an English equivalent of this but “bet my bottom pound coin” doesn’t sound quite right) that you have a goto film when you’re sick, or that you have a film that you can’t live without watching every 3 months, or there’s that one film that made you cry 5 separate times when you first watched it in theatres (it also may be true that there’s only a handful of people that know the name of said film, and you’ve been careful to distribute the information regarding this emotional trauma between this handful of people in a fashion very similar to how the Coca Cola recipe is handled). What I’m trying to say is: each of us have more than one story to tell about more than one film and may even be able to use films, and the surrounding experience, to recall important events in our own life story. In even shorter terms: films create memories.

That’s pretty damn rad isn’t it?

Now for Patricia (Mom #2), Hunter and Jacqui it seems to me, as the latest addition to their family, that film holds an interesting significance to them as a family unit. It is still true that there are fond memories of shared experiences ignited by film for them. Here’s where I have to indulge a personal favourite of mine: when Jacqui and Hunter’s Dad brought home Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke thinking it was just another Totoro.

Note: no, that is not ketchup.

I can only imagine the look on their tiny faces as Ashitaka fought that creepy spider-esque boar demon thingy, or when the camera panned across bodies of innocent villagers and they realised their heads were missing. The only thing that even comes close to my mental image is:

But what’s more is there’s this added layer to their individual experiences where film impacted them in a much more physical and central sense than just having a regular family film night each week. What I mean by this is that each of them have been on a set and each of them have had a deeper interest in the mechanics of film and filmmaking that is individual to them in this family unit. Let me make it a little clearer:

Patricia delved into a makeup diploma course in her early 20s (the diploma was the brainchild of non other than the Westmore family – if you’re a fan of Star Trek these guys might just ring one or two bells) and went from photography gigs to modelling gigs to TV gigs to video gigs.

Jacqui purchased her first camera in 7th grade (using her own $300, she’s still proud of doing so to this day), worked as a producer for an indigenous film project and ended up going to film school in Colorado for a spell. More recently, she’s been a runner and video editor for a local video production company here in Brighton.

Hunter, well his involvement with sets and film is pretty bloody obvious isn’t it? He’s an actor in his final year of his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Alberta and will (I have no doubt about it) be receiving an Oscar at some point in his life. Fact: Hunter’s first acting role was in one of Jacqui’s first videos.

What all of this adds up to is a deeper “behind the scenes” shared experience of not only film, but of life through film. It’s great when you and your parents, or your sister or brother, play the same sport right? You can bond over it and your relationship strengthens through this shared experience. This intrinsic relationship between these three wonderful people and film is much the same in that they have a shared interest that strengthens their relationship with each other.

Plus I get to watch a film with these guys and ask dumb questions like “is that guy acting well?” or “that’s too much blusher right, surely?!” or “what’s so great about this shot?” and get passion fuelled answers that I, being a hoarder of knowledge and lover of a good flick, thoroughly enjoy. Selfish I know, but I’m spoiled by just being around these people.

Shared experiences are of course just one facet of why film is important to people and families. For me and this Elevenses family it’s a pretty damn big one and I’d like to close this off by thanking all involved in every film I’ve ever watched, and every film I will watch, for contributing to my life experience in such a profound way.

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About the author

Natalie Wright is a blonde, english, 20-something that has the pleasure of blogging with the Cardinal family. Her column is “Food for Thought” and discusses the effects of food and supplementation on cognitive ability. When not blogging on Elevenses, Natalie can often be found ranting about digital marketing on Google+ and twitter.